Today there arises a "new consciousness" (NC) that seeks the restoration of the non-material elements of man's existence. These are the elements like the natural environment and the spiritual (love and peace) that are passed by in the rush of material development.

NC finds new ways to live in the light of what science and technology has made possible and desirable. It seeks to restore them to their proper place as tools of man rather than as determinants of man's existence. Since machines can produce enough food and shelter, why should not man end the antagonism derived from scarcity and base his society on love for his fellow-man? If machines can take care of our material wants, why should not man develop the esthetic and spiritual side of his nature?

The advances of science and technology cannot be arrested. They have done a lot of good for mankind; without them man can no longer live humanely. In fact, they are achievements of man. Gabriel Marcel says that machines do the work so that we could have time for each other. NC, a self-discovery in the midst of material world, is an attempt to gain transcendence.

Consciousness is not a set of opinions, information, views, or values; it is a total configuration in any given individual, which makes up his whole perception of reality, his whole world view. What makes NC "new"? It has to be seen from where it emerges, that is, of previous forms of consciousness.

1. Consciousness typical of the farmer and small time entrepreneur. It is the rural mentality: the individual works hard to get ahead. He is self-disciplined and does not think far ahead. His concerns are limited to himself, his immediate family, and perhaps the local community. Thus, the individual is unable to allow for change in the social, economic, and political structures that determine his life.

This consciousness maintains a morality based upon individual rather than social righteousness; upon good will rather than upon visible social consequences. It is a morality which promises a return to the simplistic life of the farms where men and the best form of government is that which governs least.

2. Consciousness of the corporate state, the new organizational society, the new society created by the liberal reformists. This level of consciousness speaks of system, organization, structures, establishments, corporations, the state, of multinationals, urbanization. It is the consciousness of socio-politico-economic structures.

This mentality concerns itself with the "public interest"; and the state/government is the main reforming agent. The result is the consumer society where the self is either lost, or manipulated, or even sacrificed. This is the world of Marcuse's "one-dimensional man".

3. NC claims to be the worldview of the new generation, mainly of the young person who has seen the vision of how to transcend the "contradictions, failures, and exigencies of the Corporate State itself" and who accomplishes this vaunted goal not by direct political means but by changing culture and the quality of individual lives. NC is a self-discovery.

NC manifests itself in all kinds of incipient rebellions in society. It is not an organized humanistic revolution and yet a radical critique of society. It is not a sophisticated program of revolution as that of Marx. It is rather a rejection of the values and attitudes and behavior of the system, of corporate consciousness. NC seeks to a revolution of all the structures of society; but it is unarmed, powerless, and unstructured. Its symbols are long hair, jeans, rap music, perhaps drugs, and anything unconventional.

NC is more of a sub-culture that seeks for liberation from the imperatives of society. Found mainly among the youth, it seeks new freedom. It is a personal liberation or redemption. NC is the self versus the mass of duties and obligations and fears and external standards.

There were attempts in the past to alter attitudes but have failed. Christianity, for example, has asked man to give up power, aggression, and materialism for a promise of something better in another world. Christianity has offered a change, but a remote one, not a real one.

NC or "liberated consciousness" offers a change that is immediate, real, sensual, loving, and liberating. It encourages the individual to listen to music, dance, seek out nature, laugh, be happy, be beautiful, help others whenever you can, work for them as best you can, take them in, the old and the bitter as well as young, live fully in each moment, love and cherish each other. love and cherish yourselves, stay together. "Make love not war", "Peace Man!", "Be yourself", "You are my brother", etc. are its slogans.

Is the "new consciousness" or self-discovery a valid or meritorious approach to transcendence?

(1) It is difficult to criticize the assumptions of NC. To do so, we have to do it from the point of view of previous consciousness. One is either part of the NC or is still imprisoned in a past and antiquated and self-destructive vision of what it means to be human. If you disagree with NC, you belong to another consciousness and you could not possibly understand the new spirit of freedom and self-discovery.

What is rather introduced here is an intellectual totalitarianism in viewing humanity. If you belong to NC, you are right; if you don't, you are mistaken or out of touch. You are therefore encouraged to come to NC; but if you don't want to, for all kinds of reasons, such as age, temperament, or sensitivity, then according to NC criteria you are in error and less human. But such criteria are divisive in nature. It accentuates precisely that which it wants to remove: division of individuals into classes. Individuals are now differentiated according to their acceptance or non-acceptance of NC.

(2) NC means much the same as Jews and Christians have meant by redemption, that is, the individual's discovery of the authentic self, which is created and sustained by the sovereign and almighty God. However, this "liberated consciousness" must not be identified with the empirically redeemed man. All men, including the so-called "liberated", share the same human situation, participate in the same human impoverishment, and stand before the same potentialities for human development. NC is not a unique discovery of some authentic development within the human spirit; NC does not possess the sole awareness of what it means to be human. Otherwise, the majority of people who may claim of a transcendent criterion would be excluded from the vision of a fulfilled humanity.

The NC man becomes easily satisfied with himself and an easy prey for hedonistic enslavement. It does not have a clear image or ideal of what it is to become human. It focuses mainly on this moment, the immediacy of man's experience would be indicative of the profoundest moment in history.

NC calls for transcendence. It seeks the creation of the new being, the truly human, man who is liberated from the crass and materialistic environment within which his parents and his government have placed him. But the error lies in the identification of that new creature with one particular cultural development present mainly among the youth today. This is a domestication of the notion of transcendence; hence not acceptable to the Jewish and Christian traditions.

(3)This revolution of consciousness is both empirically and historically anachronistic. It has not worked so far in history. It has not effected any visible and real change in any society.

Changes have not taken place in the location of power. In fact, power has not been challenged at all. And it is NC which encourages its adherents not to become involved in power. Political power is anti-human. It can only pervert the soul's quest for authenticity. But the fact is that ultimately political power devours those who refuse to attempt to manipulate it for humanistic objectives.

Further, the individual goes out of the political structures asserting that these are not worthy of involvement. The NC says either that power, of the corporate state, of the establishment is of no ultimate significance in the human struggle, or that power will ultimately be thwarted by spiritual forces within the human soul or heart of psyche. NC is an invitation to become consciously and deliberately nonpolitical, that is, to become impotent within the body politic: Drop out of the system and the consequence is that the system will be changed.

Life styles rather change according to historically and socially determined forces and that they are derivative of these forces. This means nothing more than that NC is a direct result of a concerted effort on the part of the corporate state (system), the powerful leaders of industry and government to assuage the potentially disruptive character of a youth culture into an impotent and anti-revolutionary behavior. The social behavior of the youth has been changed indeed, but it has been changed by the architects of society's public behavior; changed so that it cannot disrupt the established status quo. Behavior changes as the culture manipulators and the taste makers join forces with governmental agencies (who want the populace to behave in a particular way) to create a docile people and an impotent populace.

(4)NC cannot be conceived as a revolution at all. When one speaks of revolution, one conceives of cadres of dedicated professionals who devote themselves totally to the vision of a world radically altered by the social and political change. NC does not have the revolutionary ingredients of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, of the Paris Commune (1871) seeking decentralization of power.

NC is a call to effect change without any change in the political structures which determine the will and destiny of man. It is a call to a revolution with no visible signs of political alignment, no defiance of stated political authority, no sacrifice of principles, no self-discipline. What is ultimately absurd is that it is a revolution without ideology.

Social and political change comes about before there is a change in consciousness. NC believes that society can change as the hearts of its members change; but such a notion did not work historically for the Moral Rearmament Movement. One first has to change the structures of government, then he can work to effect a change in human consciousness.

(5) NC is a superficial utopianism. It tries to promote world peace and understanding.

We must be realistic. In the 20th century, nations are real political and military threats to each other. No united world community has ever been established. The national sovereignty of one nation by definition comes into conflict with that of another. Reinhold Niebuhr says that world communities are illusions, romantic dreams which can never be corroborated with historical facts.

NC believes that it will do away with wars. Value systems have to be changed. But certainly no change in value system is possible without a change in those socio-economic structures which create consumers and consumer needs. No one, even in the wildest dreams of the Victorian attempt to create the kingdom of God on earth, conceives of NC as a possible human achievement. In fact, the NC conception of the fully human community sounds like the medieval description of heaven.

In summary, NC does not work; it is not changing the world. No transcendence or revolution is coming into being. How could NC flatly say that parents are wrong, that they are misguided liberals, belonging to the corporate state; that parents do not know what it means to be human any longer; that they represent tyrannical authority and totalitarian supremacy. On the contrary, parents have the task to prepare their children to leave their homes graciously. Children have to be prepared for what they themselves conceive to be the meaning of adulthood. That means they will be equipped psychologically and emotionally to achieve full humanity for themselves in an alien and unlovely world. However, such preparation presupposes parental guidance and attention to open up vistas for spiritual, emotional, and physical expressions, all of which are not antithetical to family life but are a natural extension to it.

There is a continuity and variety of possibilities of what it means to be human. These possible experiences have to do with such emotions as love and guilt, ignorance and confusion regarding vocational goals, loneliness and fear, and the need for affection. These possible experiences are universals and do not change. The youth ought to receive some sense of the historical continuity of the human species so that his vocational and personal discovery might be made intelligently and with sophistication.

"Liberated or new consciousness" participates in the same human impoverishment and stand before the same potentialities for human development as do all other men.